Week 9: The 4th in the Eifel

Chochem Castle

In our neck of the woods, there is no better way to celebrate at 3-day weekend than with a castle! This weekend's (the 3rd in 3 weeks!) was Chochem Castle. The castle was originally built about 800 years ago, but was destroyed and rebuilt in the mid-1800's. It was interesting, as it is about the same age as oldest of the Newport Mansions (Chateau-sur-Mer, which we highly recommend) and had many similar design features (false doors to preserve symmetry, grand fireplaces, purpose-built furniture etc.). It also has a beautiful view of the Mosel, as you can see in the photos.

The castle tour was in German, but we were provided translation sheets for the main points. There were a few points, particularly with statues similar to that shown in the photo, where the tour guide would ask the group (in German) about some unexpected feature and everyone would guess, while Jason and I already knew the answer, as the surprising item was written on our sheets. On the statue, the patter was:

Tour Guide: What animal is the statue?


Someone in Group: A frog?


Tour Guide: No, it is actually a lion--you can see the paws--with a full face helmet on.

Statue at Chochem Castle

That is a very safe lion.


After our tour, we wandered through Chochem. Due to a festival, the stores in town were open (surprising, as it was Sunday), so we looked around, bought some ice cream and enjoyed the warm summer evening before heading down the river for dinner. Have I mentioned how common ice cream is? It is just like New England. Even our little town has an Eis Cafe. And the ice cream is very good, Italian style gelato. Yum!

For the 4th itself, we went to the base for Super Saber Day. As we walked around the small carnival, eating hotdogs and watching the Colonels in the dunk tank, I was reminded of Contoocook's 4th of July Strawberry Festival, where there was also a dunk tank, games for the kiddies and food. We never had an Elvis impersonator in Tooky, though. Especially one who looked a bit more like an old Roy Orbison...

The 4th on Base

The main point of a 4th of July celebration, though, is the fireworks. Since it takes forever for it to get dark around here, they didn't start until about 10:45, but they put on a good show. I have a couple videos and will upload at least one. Spoiler alert! They look like fireworks do just about everywhere else, though you can see a portion of the plane we are sitting under in the top of the frame.

We also made it out for a bike ride this weekend, heading the opposite direction on the Kyll River than we did last week. It was a very nice ride, but we rode our bikes down, then pushed our bikes back up, the very steep hill down to the river valley. We probably won't do that again--next time it will be worth the time to put the rack on the car.